Homes and businesses in east London have been targeted in a third successive “red paint” attack in a matter of weeks, The Standard can reveal.
The latest incident happened in the early hours of Tuesday last week and was wider in scope than previous attacks in the same part of Lea Bridge Road in Walthamstow.
It involved the word “brothel” being painted on the pavement – including in front of a house with no connection to any suspicious activity – alongside the mobile number of a man suspected of operating a brothel.
The attacks are believed to have been carried out by a masked woman with a grudge against a man occupying a maisonette in the street.
But in the latest attack, a woman – thought to be the same person caught on CCTV during the second incident last month – also chose to target a residential property several doors down from her main “target”.
New images also show her taking time to spray paint the mobile phone number onto the cycle superhighway that runs along the length of Lea Bridge Road.
The innocent owner of the terrace home, whose name is not being disclosed by The Standard, said Waltham Forest council had failed to heed his earlier warnings that more attacks were likely after the first attack in April on a home several doors away.
He has lived in the house, previously owned by his parents, for 57 years.
He criticised the council for failing to help him remove the red paint from his garden wall and from the front of his house, with workmen apparently saying they were only required to clean up the pavement.
He told The Standard: “It was 3.30am-ish. I opened the curtains, looked out and swore. There was red paint everywhere.
“I then reported it to the police and the council via an email I had already had from a previous attack.
“In red there was the word ‘brothel’ and arrows pointing to my house. That I think was purely done to put pressure on us to put pressure on the council and the police to get him moved.
“What I feel is that the council have just left us to it. They have been down once, had a look and decided there is not much they can do.
“At one point I was even told it’s not in their remit because the wall is a private wall, which is crazy.”
A meeting of residents was held with the council last Wednesday, at which it was said the subject of the attacks had been served a “prohibition order” by the Met police, effectively requiring him to leave the property in a bid to prevent further attacks.
The man is understood to have left the maisonette on Thursday or Friday last week.
The meeting was told that the attacker was believed to have broadened the scope of her attacks to “further antagonise neighbours” to cause them to put more pressure on the authorities to force the man she targeting to leave the area.
Speaking on Sunday, the resident said he simply wanted the council to clean his wall.
He said: “You can see remnants of the wording on the pavement. My wall is still red. I’m cleaning my own property.
“I still don’t know if anybody [from the council] is coming back. It just seems to me that there is very little effort on their part to do anything to rectify the situation.
“Bearing in mind, I wrote to them on May 17 to tell them [another attack] was going to happen, I don’t think they needed a crystal ball.
“I wasn’t targeted for any other reason than to put more pressure on [the “brothel keeper”] to go.
“It’s the first attack on my house but the third along the road. It started on 799 [Lea Bridge Road] and it’s expanded out to three or four shop fronts.
“It would have expanded further if the police hadn’t evicted him. I said at the meeting: What is next? Is it a brick? Is it a petrol bomb? We don’t know who they are. We don’t know how far they would go to get him out.
“They said that the red paint attacks [across London], though very similar in their look, aren’t necessarily linked, although [the people involved] are Chinese.
“In this case, we think the lady who did this had a personal problem with the guy running the flat. Whether that was over money or territory, I have no idea. She was definitely linked with the business.
“She wasn’t a vigilante. She wasn’t somebody living across the road, saying: I don’t want this on my doorstep.”
Asked if he had been left frightened by the attack, he said: “Not frightened, but really, really annoyed.
“The council can’t necessarily stop these things from happening, but they can do a lot more in their response. Communication has been really poor.”
Walthamstow MP Stella Creasy has offered to help the resident after being approached by The Standard.
There is also concern about the failure to clean up after another red paint attack in Hoe Street, in the centre of Walthamstow – opposite the newly-opened Soho Theatre.
The resident has been provided with a video doorbell by the police because he is classed as a victim of crime.
Waltham Forest council and the Met police have been approached for comment.
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